They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk on to a trolley and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

'Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine – platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?'

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

'Have a good term,' said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing. Harry's mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do?

He wheeled his trolley onto platform nine. Rather than seeing more of the arched roofs that covered the main building, Harry looked up at a low, flat ceiling with dim skylights. Platforms nine and ten were tucked away in a separate little train shed, which more than anything resembled a gloomy bread bin, dropped next to the station by some absent-minded colossus.

On Harry's right, passengers lined a yellow-brick wall, either leaning against the soot-blackened bricks or resting on seats. A silver-haired gentleman read a newspaper, standing next to a pimpled teenager on a bench. Next to them stood a woman with hoop earrings hanging from her lobes, and, beside her, a whale of a man had his eyes set on the large clock above. Further ahead, a commuter in a thin mackintosh stared into the distant morning light outside the sheds, where the platform's long concrete tongue extended another fifty yards. Hedwig hooted softly in her cage.

Harry parked the trolley next to the seats and looked around. 'Where is platform nine and three-quarters?' he hissed to himself, while Hedwig clicked her beak. He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks.

'I should cover her with something.' He walked up to the trolley and reached for the cage.

His jaw dropped. Hedwig was not in it. Turning around, Harry's head jerked up, down, right, left. Nowhere on the platform was any trace of an owl. His arms flopped to the sides.

'Where on earth could she have gone?' he groaned.

From somewhere came a distant, hoarse cackle. Harry craned his neck, scanning the platform for the source. Nothing. He turned his head to the platform across the tracks, number ten. There, just above the irregular outline of commuters, red hair flew past and disappeared behind a slim pole. Harry took a step forward, squinting.

'How dreadful!' cried a voice behind him, making him jump. He spun around. A pair of old matrons – one in a headscarf, the other in red glasses – were sitting next to each other on a bench.

'But I do agree, Barbara – something has to be done about such behaviour.'

'Why, I get scared just trying to leave the house! Merely walking to the station is an ordeal. And, goodness me, Audrey – all the litter everywhere.'

'Indeed, Barbara, indeed!'

Harry turned his back to them and scanned the other platform again. People were sitting or standing and the pole was placed smack in the centre, but there was little else.

'– there's no denying it,' said one of the old ladies, 'and the world's better off without them in my opinion.'

Harry froze. 'What was that you said?'

'Hmph!' snorted the woman in the red glasses. 'You heard me. It wouldn't surprise me if you turned into one of those hoodlums yourself, young man.'

'Oh, um …' he faltered. 'Sorry.' The ladies faced each other again and resumed their discussion.

Harry walked further up the platform. A nervous punk in light blue jeans sat biting his fingernails. Harry dithered for a moment, then said:

'Have … have you seen an owl flying past?'

The man stopped biting and looked up. His fingertips were bleeding. He gawked at Harry for a second, then shook his head and continued biting his nails.

Harry considered his own nails: rough and cracked. Dudley's gang had chased him at school: Harry ran; jumped behind the bins outside the kitchen doors. One of the boys yells and points; they regroup and start running towards the bins. Harry stretches for a windowpane above him – cannot reach it – claws at the bricks in the wall – Dudley and his gang get closer … He lies on the wet asphalt with a bloody nose. Fingernails scratched and bleeding.

…

'Harry!' shouted a voice from platform ten. 'Over here!'

A rather short man in a purple coat stood on a bench, waving.

Harry looked up, blinked once – a teenage girl with bleached hair stood waving, shouting in the direction of the main station:

'Mary!' she cheered. 'It's over here! Platform ten!'

Another girl came marching towards her friend with a shopping bag in her hand, smiling under her brown fringe, her heels resounding with quick tap-tap-taps on the concrete. The little man was gone.

'Is that the platform?' Harry whispered.

He hurried back down platform nine and clasped the trolley handles. Holding his breath and emitting a little grunt, he pulled the bulky luggage around. With a loud slap, the trunk hit the concrete and lay open. A long-nosed woman on a bench eyed Harry, then returned to her newspaper.

Bending down, Harry took hold of the lid's latch and was about to close the trunk when he suddenly paused. He lifted the lid again.

Someone had filled the trunk with all manner of rubbish. A broken bowl, a cardboard tube, a few empty bottles, a stick, a pair of cut-up socks, a soot-covered party hat and shreds of stained cloth and yellowed magazines.

'Dudley,' Harry seethed in a whisper, 'you lousy, mean … evil …'

He slammed the lid close and snapped the draw bolts shut. After heaving the trunk back onto the trolley, he sat down on the bench, scowling at the floor.

'Great,' he muttered. 'No owl. No luggage. I'm sure to make a huge success at Hogwarts now. If I even get to Hogwarts.' He shot a furious glance over at the other platform. Mary and her friend were hugging and chatting.

A slight shadow fell. Harry turned. Popping its head into the bread-bin shed was an approaching train, painting a dark block against the opening. Harry squinted in its direction, craning his neck … and leaned back in the seat again.

'It's much too early, anyway.'

The train stretched its body along the platform edge. Nearly kissing the buffer stops, it came to a squeaking halt. The doors along its dusty side slid open and with a din of shoes on the hard surface, a dozen passengers swarmed out.

A man in a jeans jacket and a short-haired woman stopped close to Harry. The woman knelt next to the wall and started tying her trainers.

'– but that's the thing,' said the man, talking down to her. 'First, she disappears from the face of the earth. Nowhere to be found. And then, suddenly, she comes back home. And on every bloody holiday she'd have her pockets full of – y'know – "discreet" baggies.'

The woman laughed. 'That little witch! Unbelievable. And you never got the job?'

'Not a chance. Not with my sister being what she is. Such stories spread like wildfire.'

The woman stood up and the pair resumed their stroll. Meanwhile, new travellers hurried into the train carriages and towards whatever seats were close enough to exits and far enough from people.

'Excuse me!'

A girl with an orange backpack over her shoulders stood tugging the sleeve of a station guard in a prim hat.

'When's the train to Brighton?'

'Personally,' said the guard, 'I don't understand where all those ideas came from.'

Smiling, the girl trilled, 'And what ideas they were!'

'Marked for a lifetime,' the guard smiled back.

The girl hobbled away to the main building; the guard strode off on the platform in the opposite direction.

'W – what?' Harry chuckled, turning his neck after the girl and guard. He shook his head. The train doors closed.

'I heard about that!' proclaimed the matron with the red glasses behind him. 'How aaawfully sad, Audrey. Nothing much to do about it – there was something wrong from day one.'

Audrey nodded. 'Indeed, Barbara. It goes with the blood, doesn't it?'

'Yes, that's what they say.'

A loud whistle. The guard waved at the train and bellowed:

'Blood will out!'

The train started moving. At its rear, a red light signal flashed irritably as the metallic worm crawled out of the shed, glowed white and yellow in the sunlight over the open tracks, and dove into a dark tunnel underneath Goods Way.

Having barely noticed it himself, Harry had trotted after the train at a mechanical jogging pace. He now stood at the shed's open end, still gazing at the tunnel. A gust blew through his hair.

Clink!

On the ground, an empty beer bottle rolled to and fro like a windscreen wiper. Reclined against the sooty wall behind Harry sat three young men, mumbling to one another in blurred syllables.

'I scored – wha'? – four wraps of 'is,' said one, exhaling tobacco smoke from his nose, plucking his greasy, blond bob. 'Was aw righ', bu' …'

'Nofin' speciaw,' said another one with watery eyes and protruding cheekbones. 'Bu' 'e fought 'e was big, inni'? Goin' long, flippin' chickens. Said 'e served fif'y keys, one trip.'

'Bloody full of 'isself,' blurted the third man. 'Cawed 'isself "The Wizard". Cor! 'E was never tha' good.'

The blond man guffawed and coughed. 'Wizard? So much for tha'! 'E and tha' loony bird just –'

Bam! Outside, blares and loud voices shouted over each other.

'Wha' was tha'?' said the bony-faced man, turning his head and squinting his eyes at the light.

'Jams crashin', inni'?'

Harry turned to walk back, stepping beside the trio. On the wall above the men's heads was a scribble, stating:

Jon was here '89

Next to it, a little cartoon of a spiral had been drawn in clumsy smudges.

'Oi! Kid!' said the grease-bob, sizing Harry up.

Harry took his eyes from the wall and stammered. 'Wh – I –'

''Ell you lookin' a'? Sod off!'

Harry's feet made a few awkward dance moves before they obeyed him, and then he ran down the platform towards his trolley, the men roaring after him, bottles clinking.

While he dashed past the benches, the matrons were deep in conversation:

'– asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these criminal types –'

'Huh?' he panted, turning his head.

The ladies eyed him just as he – still running – tripped on his baggy jeans. Like a mallet, the length of his body whipped down, head first, through the air towards the ground.

Smack!

ack …

aʞ …

ʍ …

ɐ …

…

…

…

He was back at Gringotts.

The vast hall was dim and silent. Vacant high stools lined the long counter and hundreds of closed ledgers lay on top. Not a goblin in sight. At the end of the chamber was a door, a light within forming a yellow slit along its frame.

Harry walked across the marble floor, his pounding steps throbbing between the walls.

He stopped at the doorway; a peculiar voice came from inside. It was a deep, grinding drone with trilling overtones, similar to the mutter of a girl with a sore throat. Harry inhaled and pulled the door open.

In the cramped room, a tall and thin man stood with his back to Harry, rummaging among strewn paper on a wooden table. Lit candles lined the table like hollowed oak stumps, molten and squat.

'… that would be a good place to …' the man muttered. '… and after that … a little more of …'

'Excuse me,' Harry said.

'… can't very well write that …'

'Pardon me, sir!' Harry prompted.

The man stiffened and stood straight up.

'Paaardon meee, siiir,' he mimicked with a nasal voice.

The man spun around, revealing a gaunt face, white hair and beard and a snug, buttoned-up cardigan. His blue eyes narrowed behind half-moon spectacles as he resumed in the same mocking tone:

'Harry said. Excuuuse meee, Harry said. I just want to borrow another book on magic, Harry said. Harry, Harry, Harry said!'

The man was out of breath.

'Harry … said …' he wheezed.

Silence.

'Ah! Harry said!' he cried with delight, making little jumps. 'Have you seen my mirror, young man? The Mirror of Harry said? I put it in a package somewhere. You know' – he gestured with his slender fingers – 'about this size, covered with brown paper?

'The mirror was much too large, of course,' he went on, 'so I whacked it to pieces and then it fit absolutely perfectly. My brain surprises even me sometimes … Now, enough questions. I suggest you make a start on these sweets. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?'

The man held a pebble in front of Harry.

'No? Then you had better go look for my mirror!' The man turned his back on Harry again and proceeded to pore over the papers on the table.

For a moment, Harry stood rooted on the floor while the cardigan-wearing man mumbled to himself. Taking in the room, Harry's eyes meandered along the stone walls. They had an elaborate pattern carved into them, shapes and figures resembling twisted eyes, mouths, noses and ears, shifting and budging in the candlelight.

Among them, a large mouth gaped in a corner of the room, level with the floor. Harry tread towards it. It was a hole, going straight into the wall, just big enough to crawl through.

'Yes,' said the old man, looking up, the irregularities in his face thrown into relief by the light, 'it could be in there somewhere.'

'What could?' Harry asked as he stared into the dark opening.

'Oh, you know what. It's the You-Know-What.'

'But what is the You-Know-What?' cried Harry, looking back at the man.

There was no one there.

A cold wind blew from the gap through the room – the sheets of paper whirled around and the candle flames flickered on their wicks, shadows dancing like madmen on the stone carvings.

Shivering, Harry turned back to the wall. He bent down, one knee at a time, and peered through the hole. Pitch black. A few yards ahead, however, a faint, red light shimmered. He sighed and rested his hands on the ground.

'Do you want this?' he wondered.

'Do you?'

He started crawling.

…

… …

… ɐll ɹᴉght¿ …

… cɐn you μear me?'

Harry coughed.

'Are you all right?'

He lay resting on his back, panting. The guard from before was looking down at him with big, round eyes, his ears thin and poking out under his hat.

'You shouldn't be running on a platform with those clothes, lad. But then I never had an eye for fashion.'

Harry pushed his elbows back for support and he grunted as the guard helped him up.

'Do you need anything? Do you want to call someone?'

'I'm all right, thanks,' said Harry, blinking at the light. 'What time is it?'

'Quarter to eleven,' said the guard, straightening himself. 'Should you change your mind, don't hesitate to let me know.' He turned on his heels and marched down the platform.

With a heavy wheeze, Harry seated himself on the bench next to his trolley and grazed his temple with his hand.

'Ow …'

Behind a flock of commuters over at platform ten stood a train in blue, white and red livery. Its insides had already emptied, but its doors were open, eager for more. Men and women stepped on board; a lady in stilettos hurried in with a tap-a-tap-a-tap.

'Gringotts …' Harry murmured, holding his head. 'Diagon Alley …'

He screwed up his eyes and counted on his fingers:

'We … we went to the bookshop, and I bought those set books with Hagrid. And then we went shopping for robes. And a wand. And … and then –'

Tap. Tap. Tap.

'Get up! Now!'

Beside the blue train, a woman bent down over a small, crying boy, pulled him to his feet and ushered him through the opening.

'Go' any change?'

An old man, furrowed and purple-nosed, stared at Harry, holding a shaking palm in front of him.

'Oh!' Harry blurted, his hands patting his clothes. 'I still have those! Still have … those.' The beggar's eyes did not move as Harry rummaged in his pockets.

Cold metal met his fingertips. He let out a long sigh.

'Thank God …'

He clasped a handful of coins and put it in the man's hand.

'There you are,' Harry grinned, leaned back and regarded the ceiling, where a faint sun loomed behind the skylights.

An intense smattering resounded on his left.

The plum-nosed man had thrown the coins straight at the brick wall and was spitting and snorting and grunting through his gums.

Harry curled up in his seat and stammered a vain 'I'm – I'm – I'm sorry!' as the vagabond shuffled down the platform, still muttering and snorting at no one in particular.

Uncoiling himself, Harry caught his breath and sighed:

'Good grief – I can't believe how stupid I am!' He looked down on the mess below. 'Of course he wouldn't want Galleons and Shickles and –'

The floor was a clutter of grey pebbles.

'W-what –' Harry sputtered. A pair of tweed shoes navigated through the pebbles sprinkled on the platform, their owner grunting pointedly.

'The money must be here,' Harry muttered while looking through his pockets and droplets of cold sweat dotted his temples. 'Why aren't they here?' he whined as more pebbles hit the ground.

His head gave a jerk. 'Of course! I put them in the trunk!'

He hurtled to the trolley's side. As he held the cage up to get to the trunk, he chuckled:

'Did I really give him pebbles? How thick can you get? No wonder the –'

He was not holding a cage at all. A wire coat-hanger was dangling in his hand. Harry gasped and the coat-hanger fell to the ground, rattling on the concrete.

'No, that's impossible!' he exclaimed. 'This isn't –'

He tensed and inhaled.

'Is this … Dark Magic?'

Harry looked around the station, eyes wild.

'They're here!'

He breathed in and out, composing himself. 'They've got to be here, somewhere. Come on, Harry. This is it. This is it!'

The blue train gathered speed and pushed through the shed and into the open, leaving the platform deserted behind it. In the silence that followed, Harry moved closer to the tracks, almost stepping on the thin stroke of white paint outlining the platform's edge. He leaned forwards. Half a fathom down was a blackness lined by rail. In a low, trembling voice, he sang to himself:

'W-where dwell the brave at heart …'

'Right away!'

It was the guard's voice.

Harry looked up, gazing down the platform. No guard. No train in need of guarding. Far off, hanging from the signal gantry above the tracks outside, a bulb was shining emerald green.

'Aargh!'

Pain, sharp as a knife, shot through his eyeball. Harry staggered backwards, wincing and groaning. The bulb of light still flashed across his vision like an incandescent pea.

He collapsed on a seat and threw his head back, gasping for air. His bleary eyes twitched, trying to find the ceiling. Twirling and coming in and out of focus, the entire station was transforming into a kaleidoscope of colours and sounds.

An odd snicker was clucking somewhere. From above, a spotted witch's hat dropped down, landed on a station clock and spun round and round. Next to it, a smiling garden gnome – like a little Father Christmas – stood waving his mechanical arm. From the gnome's open mouth came a booming voice:

'Welcome back, Mr Potter, welcome back …'

The gnome melted like a candle, and in mere moments it was only a slimy puddle that ran down the concrete, over the edge and onto the tracks below.

On a pair of rails, a huge man with a grimy face and a soiled, black overcoat was chugging along. He was pushing a supermarket trolley filled with mangled paraphernalia, an imbecilic grin moving underneath his tangled beard.

The man's broad legs moved faster and faster towards the main station. The garbage in the trolley trembled and quivered and –

'Vrooooooommm!' he roared and zoomed upwards, jump-jet-fashion. With a grainy 'Heh-heh-heh-heh!', his voice jarred over the station as he soared this way and that, performing flying manoeuvres along the walls and ceiling, bouncing off bricks and lamps like a pinball.

After climbing like a rocket in a great arc, the man brushed the ceiling's top, and – after kicking his legs in the air as someone out of fuel – came rushing down, resembling a fighter pilot hit by enemy fire. 'Uh oh! Uh oh!' he yelped, and a second later crashed into the platform concrete.

'Who-ho-hoops-a-daisy,' the man chortled as he got to his feet, wading through the trolley's sprinkled junk.

He looked up and inspected Harry with glinting, beetle-black eyes. Smiling, he shot his plate-sized hand into his heavy coat, and from one of its many pockets he pulled out a balloon. It started swelling; it grew bigger and bigger, and the man gasped with mock surprise:

'Blimey, Harry! Everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems!'

Pop!

The balloon and the giant were gone.

As the pop's lingering echo faded, the station filled with blinding flashes. Harry shut his eyes and groaned; the pain chewing his head was piercing and cold like icicles. A tingle was buzzing in his hands and feet, crawling up his limbs towards him.

He inhaled. Five, six, seven …

A numbness settled over him.

The world melted away.

…

…

Harry stood up.

A bare light bulb glowed above a walkway between dirty, red-bricked walls, which cascaded in a flight of concrete stairs. Some sort of machine was humming somewhere.

Harry looked back. In the wall behind him was a hole, large enough to crawl through. A faint wind whispered from it.

Harry walked down the stairs with tense steps, as if lazily resisting a magnet's pull. On the wall was monochrome graffiti, moving in slithering coils. Small figures – black cats? – chess pawns? – appeared and departed. The steps were littered with debris and grime. Coca-Cola cans, a few stamped-out cigarettes; a dark stain on dull concrete. A pile of matches. Squiggly pieces of plastic that shone dimly on the floor. A pair of burnt spoons. Empty crisp packets. Broken glass.

He bumped into something hard and flat. Holding out a hand into the gloom, it met with a cold iron door. Harry's heart pummelled in his chest as he groped for the door handle and took a firm hold. A moment's hesitation – then he forced the door wide open.

Inside was an empty room lit by a lone torch fastened to the right-hand wall. Harry surveyed the space, then gulped: Vault seven hundred and thirteen. On the floor was something like a small, brown football: a package wrapped up in leathery paper.

Harry clutched the torch and, with a light tug, pulled it out of its sconce.

From somewhere came the resonating voice of the man in the overcoat:

'Lost yer marbles, have yeh, Harry? Codswallop! Yeh don' wan' all 'em Galleons. The real treasure … is righ' … here …'

Harry flailed the torch about, his shoes pushing puffs of dust into the air. Not a soul. The brown parcel lay still in the room's centre.

As he picked it up, the voice came again:

'Very secret, Harry! Hogwarts business. Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh …'

His heart beating in his throat, Harry beheld the bundle in his hand while the torch cast quivering shadows around him. In a tentative motion, he turned the package and –

Crack! On the stone floor lay a human skull. The fall had left a deep rift in its forehead. In his hand, Harry held an empty parcel.

With a toothy grin and hollow eyes looking up at Harry, the skull's words reverberated around the vault in thunderous booms:

'… You … Know … What …'

Harry screamed. As he stepped back, his foot made an awkward twist, the torch fell from his hand and he plummeted down, down into darkness.

His eyes opened.

He must have cried out aloud across the station – passers-by turned around to eye him before they sped off again.

Harry was holding something. Clutched in his hands was a thin brochure, its cover brimming with primary colours. A speech bubble above the face of a cartoon train said,

Catch a train at King's Cross!

With his brow creased, Harry opened the leaflet. On the right-hand page was a longer text:

Our top priority is making sure You get to where You are going – on time!

Like society's umbilical cord, our railway infuses the country with the fresh oxygen of thousands of customers from King's Cross Station every day.

Make that a return ticket! Situated in Central London, King's Cross is an exciting hub of nightlife and creative endeavours. The area has rightfully become a favourite haunt for clubbers and artists alike.

Let yourself be inspired by the endless possibilities!

There was squeaking and grinding on the rails in front of Harry. He stood up as if on command. A train had just arrived – half black, half white, with a thin, red line painted across. Its doors opened and out streamed passengers.

Men's, women's and children's voices rose, fell and overlapped in a dissonant buzz, accompanied by heels hammering and jackets and skirts rustling:

'– of course they didn't –'

'– they didn't even have a car –'

'– but what were we to tell the poor boy? –'

'– the accident certainly exposed them –'

'– a cruel inheritance –'

'– yes, prenatal – marked as her equal –'

'– swore we'd stamp it out of him, so to speak –'

'– with all the love she never understood –'

'– swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to it –'

'– refused to let us get any closer –'

'– always kicking and screaming –'

'– stayed in that blasted cupboard all day long!'

The crowd dispersed and the noise receded, each person going about their business in the main building and beyond, leaving Harry standing.

Trembling from head to foot, he hurried to sit down, but missed the bench and landed on the floor. He pushed himself rearwards and leaned his back against the brick wall. Holding his hands tight around his shins, he let his head drop between his knees and he shut his eyes.

The station's clamour withdrew.

After a while, against the foggy insides of his eyelids, a blurry, humanlike figure emerged – a young woman. Red, unkempt hair and a cigarette between her fingers. Somewhere behind her lay a man, his mouth open, maybe sleeping. His oily, black hair was sticking up in all directions.

Her body swaying to the sides in lopsided steps, the woman made her way forwards. Her face came closer, its outlines forming. A gaunt and sallow face speckled with sores. Growing into view: her glazed, big eyes, their pinpoint pupils almost dissolving in green irises. Her hoarse, drawling voice:

'Time for … some magic … little Harry.'

Searing pain. Screaming – screaming – screaming. Green light flashing – for a second, her smiling eyes gleam in a lone sunbeam escaping a grimy window. From her decaying mouth comes laughter – a high, cold, cruel laugh.

Harry blinked.

A distant whistle somewhere at the station. The black-and-white train had gone. Harry gulped where he sat, resting against the wall by platform nine. He touched the scar on his forehead; a slight ache pulsing through his head.

With the clumsy gestures of stiff limbs, he lifted his buttocks and heaved himself onto the bench beside him. The clock over the arrivals board showed four minutes past eleven. Harry glared at the black minute hand as though it had betrayed him.

'Absolutely not, Vernon!' said a voice.

On the other platform, a trolley fell on its side with a crash.

'What she did is unforgivable!'

Harry swallowed hard and his eyes swung between their corners. From his lips came a hushed but rapid 'What's going on? What's going on? What's going on?'

Grating music blared from someone's boom box – a soda bottle hit the floor, liquid and glass shattering over the concrete –

'I don't want anything to do with her, Vernon. She's not my sister any more!'

– the brakes of an oncoming train screeched – people stood up from their seats – a light bulb popped – from a loudspeaker above, a shrill announcement resounded –

'I DON'T WANT TO HEAR HER NAME EVER AGAIN!'

Harry wheezed for air.

He sat tense on his seat. His breathing shook and he swallowed again and again, pulling at his disobedient fringe of hair with his hand.

'I … I just don't understand,' he whined. 'W-what is this?'

'But you already know,' said a serene voice.

Beside Harry sat a tall, old man with long hair and beard, wearing sweeping robes. Bright, blue eyes glimmered in their sockets.

'Kn – know what?' Harry said.

The man smiled at him. 'Not merely what, but also who.'

'I – I don't know anyone –'

'Oh, Harry,' the man sighed, shaking his head. 'Harry, Harry, Harry. I believe you do. Think back. Early on in your life something quite extraordinary happened – something magical.'

Harry's mouth opened and closed, casting a defiant glare at the man. The blue irises stared back at him like an empty sky – plain and still. Harry gulped and his eyes dropped.

'I … I was hurt …' he whispered.

'You were,' said the man, nodding. 'Go on!'

'It burnt … It burnt like fire.'

'I am sure it did. Yet fire only leaves a petty little dent. The real magic wrapped your very destinies together.'

'Destinies? The guard said something … Is this about – blood?'

'Precisely! Her blood is in your veins, Harry!'

'Her blood? B-but how could that be my … I never even knew the n-name of …'

The man's head convulsed in encouraging nods, and a wide, excited smile twisted the wrinkles on his face.

In a whisper barely audible, Harry said:

'She is the one who Must Not Be Named.'

'Yes!' the man beamed.

'But then …'

'But then …?'

'… there is no Diagon Alley.'

'Oh, no!' the man shook his head, his mouth's corners sinking further down than physically possible.

'And … no Gringotts. No Hedwig … No Hagrid.'

The man smiled.

'But why?' Harry snarled, tears sparkling in his eyes. 'If this is all – if – Why do I always see them? Every day! Every – single – day do I see them! Everywhere … Why do I see you?'

The man patted Harry's hand and chuckled:

'Things do have a tendency to appear a bit wonky – and perhaps more truthful! – when you have been dipped in a witch's cauldron. What a potion it is! Don't you think? Creeping through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. Passing the threshold between life and death – even between generations!'

'P-potion? W – what potion? I've never –'

The man's crooked fingers seized Harry's wrist in a vice-like grip and pulled him up to his enormous blue eyes. With an acrid voice and delirious smile under his beard, he hissed:

'Your parents' inheritance was not Galleons, you stupid boy, but what they brewed. And through your mother's blood – long before you knew any pain – you were positively drowning in wicked fluids festering in your mind!'

The grip on Harry's hand loosened and the man leaned back again, smiling. Harry stared at him with bulging eyes, tears running down his cheeks, his mouth trembling.

'Now, now, Harry,' said the man and put a hand on his shoulder. 'So, it turns out you have more than a mere garden snake lurking in there. But someone as brave as you isn't afraid of a little blood, are you?'

As if he had just remembered something, the man put a finger to his lips and, with a twinkle in his eye, added:

'Though, of course: last time I heard, blood …' – he put his mouth close to Harry's ear – '… will …'

'– no –'

'– OUT!'

Cackling laughter bounced above and below and to the sides of Harry, who curled up and shut his eyes, pressing his palms to his ears. His abdomen trembled in convulsive jolts, sending shudders through his windpipe in breathy punches.

The laughter trailed off in a morbid tremor. On his seat, Harry had coiled into a tense ball, his eyelids still closed to tight slits. He did not stir for a long time.

When he opened his eyes, King's Cross Station had returned to its regular self. It was no different from when Harry first pushed his trolley onto the platform.

He sat up, shivering. Passengers rushed past him. Businessmen, clubbers, mothers and punks all went by, their legs hurrying along like scissors in trousers and skirts, their shoes clapping or clicking on the ground, trolleys rumbling, haircuts bobbing up and down to the rhythm of their steps. From a loudspeaker somewhere, a fuzzy voice made an unintelligible announcement that mingled with the commotion.

His nose pulsated with uneasy breaths, which soon set off into rapid bursts. A torrent of nausea grew in his throat – he threw himself to the side, landing on all fours on the concrete.

'Glaaaargh!' he bellowed as thin, sour liquid spewed from his mouth and splashed on the floor next to the brick wall.

He coughed, then spat a couple of times into the pool of vomit, his eyes swollen and his glasses smeared with tears.

Catching his breath, he bent his head up, his mouth slack, saliva hanging from his lower lip. A distinct group passed him: from a carriage on platform nine came a plump woman, followed by four red-headed boys. A small girl held the woman's hand.

As they walked by, the woman regarded Harry with a hint of pity, but pulled the girl closer to her. The girl stared at Harry, her face contorted with disgust. All four boys looked straight ahead of them; the oldest held his nose.

The group headed for the exit behind the ticket barriers. One by one, they stepped through the doors, faded into the daylight and disappeared.

Harry got on his knees. Putting a foot on the ground and a hand on his thigh, he hauled himself up, but lost his footing and fell, slanting against the bricks.

The whites of his eyes were covered by a web of arteries and purple shadows tinged the skin underneath. The passers-by blended together, as did minutes and seconds. He sat there like an immovable fixture secured to the station wall, spittle soiling his clothes. Some people glared in his direction, but he gave no sign of being aware of where he was.

A loudspeaker crackled:

'The eleven o'clock train to Hogwarts will arrive in five minutes on platform nine and three-quarters, for departure at eleven-thirty. We are sorry about the delay. The eleven o'clock –'

Harry jerked awake. Limbs fretting and shaking, he tried to get on his feet. Every muscle in his body ached as he pulled himself up. His trembling hands brushed off his clothes and straightened his glasses.

'H- … H-Hogwarts …'

Staggering and swaying as he went, Harry trotted up along the platform – past the matrons, past all the benches, past the young men with their bottles – and out of the shed, out to where the tracks and platforms lay bare under the sun. The building's buzz and voices gave way to the car engines and blares from the roads.

Harry stopped at the very end of platform nine. Standing with his arms tense by his ribs, fists clenched and trembling, Harry gazed at the hole of the left tunnel lurking under Goods Way. His chest swelled and compressed in uneasy breaths.

The tunnel was still pitch black. The horns of cars and lorries blared from the sides as Harry's thumbs fidgeted in his hands.

Far within the tunnel, two shining globes came to life. Harry gulped. A smile spasmed on his face, and as the orbs advanced, he burst into a wide grin. He whipped around and hobbled back down the platform, giggling and sobbing.

A gust of air caught his jacket and for a second he looked back.

Coming out of the tunnel in the distance was not the scarlet Hogwarts Express, but an angular, electric locomotive in white and yellow – an unyielding battering ram covered in steel, with a dark window splayed flat across its front.

Harry stopped running. Watching the train approach, his arms hung dead at his sides. His face did not move a muscle.

Just below him, the rail's dull blades glistened in the sun. The wind blew cold against Harry's pale forehead and bared neck, catching the unruly thatches of his hair, which twirled and flapped helter-skelter as the locomotive's glaring face grew larger and larger.

Harry managed a low croaking from his throat before it happened:

'If there is magic anywhere … it's not in this world …'